The Public Health Service is an extension of the US Navy and if you check out the billet numbers, they're pitifully small. Commissioned reserve officers attend a 'knife and fork' school to learn how to salute, wear the uniform, etc. There are no enlisted members of the public health service. It's a VAST leap from where it is to calling them anything other than what they are. Might they become something else? Sure. Likely? No. There are other venues to find to generate an army of thugs.

It's been a day of conspiracy theories. Jay G, Larry Corriea, and now you...

I've got a cut and paste thing that I can just insert where ever it applies:

“I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again here. I didn’t used to put much into conspiracy theories: you know, the “THEY”RE ALL OUT TO GET US!” things. I thought that it was more everyone blundering in the wrong direction, little by little.
The longer I follow the news, the more suspicious I become.”

The idea of turning the Public Health Service into an army is absurd, and that's not what's going on. The same week they reconciled the health care bill, they nationalized all student loans. Now every young whippersnapper that wants to get an M.D. must borrow money from the federal government -- strings attached. Feel free to theorize what plans they have in store that would suddenly require lifting the cap on Public Health Service headcount.

Ah, Tom Kratman. I read A Desert Called Peace but I haven't hit the sequel yet. Subtle? Sometimes he actually is - most other times he is pure sledgehammer.

I think the outrage you felt at the Dept of Education acquiring short-barrel 870s was a lot more appropriate than twisting up the knickers about the Public Health Service. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

You're behind the times, Juris. There is one sequel now. Another (The Lotus Eaters) comes out in about 2 weeks (it's been available in ecopy for some time). Volume IV, The Amazon Legion, is in the pipeline for...soonish. There will probably be nine in the series, total.

By the way, folks, while I would not say ASOD was a great book - okay, sure, but not great - you might be interested to know that Rottemeyer's speech was in good part lifted almost verbatim from the Democratic Party platform for Campaign 2000.

The great thing about Baen's stable of authors and the gun/freedom blogs: they overlap. Love your books, eagerly awaiting the Legion's showdown with the Frogs, and really interested to see just how far down the hole Earth is.

First shots in that begin with The Lotus Eaters, Britt, due out in about 2 weeks, and there's a bit in Volume IV, The Amazon Legion (forthcoming). The real bloodletting won't start until V, though, Molon Labe, and continue in VI, The Rods and the Axe.

I haven't read that series yet, but I liked State particularly for the politcal interplay, and I really liked Caliphate. Considered as an example of One Way Things Could Go, I think Caliphate has a lot to recommend it on those grounds too.

Eh? Wasn't like I didn't enjoy most of my time in. Really, the guys who are owed thanks for their service are not people like me, who liked it, but the ones who didn't enjoy it, but "seen their duty" and "done it," anyway.

If you think about it, you can usually assign an innocuous explanation and a nefarious explanation (or more than one, considering Hypnogogue's commet) to just about anything. The question, taking into consideration the source, the probability, and the potential consequences, is: Which way do you bet?

"First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go. This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being."

So when a Republican is President, he can detain anyone he likes without charge, purely by declaring them an 'enemy combatant'. However, when a Democrat is President, they shouldn't be able to even excute a federal arrest warrant without the permission of the local sheriff.

Look, fact is there was one American citizen detained as an enemy combatant during the Bush administration. Jose Padilla had his day in court too, and he was convicted in a court of law. It's a difficult thing. Prior restraint does, for me, become justifiable when you have so many lives at stake.That being said, no one likes it. Especially since the legal precdent was 3rd term FDR, who had at that point appointed 8 of the 9 Justices. On the detaining American citizens without habeas corpus front, Lincoln and FDR detained thousands, and Bush detained one. It's not a good thing, but all things considered, it's acceptable. Especially since Padilla was in fact an AQ scumbag and not some case of mistaken identity.

The good thing is that there just aren't a whole lot of American citizens growing up with a jihad state of mind. The social mobility and oppurtunity here means there isn't a pool of disaffected and idle angry young men to recruit from. Which is why Europe is doomed: the enemy is already inside the gates, and they can't deal with them because the people that hate and despise them are protected by the system they want to overthrow.

Kratman does the Death Stare very well, judging from the pic on his site. The only time I've seen it IRL was on the visage of a US Marine Staff Sergeant ( I think, didn't have time to count rockers) who didn't look old enough to buy alcohol lawfullly. It was during the Toys for Tots thing, and he was checking out the donation bin, or something.

You should have seen the reactions I used to get in some parts of Germany. ;)

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